Eight bucks well spent!
Who says hereditary oil oligarchs contribute nothing to society.
We spent several pleasant hours perusing exhibits & sitting on the patio.
I finally met James Ensor (Belgium's famous painter).
I liked this Géricault study for the central figure on The Raft of the Medusa, and spotted the original of a painting familiar as the cover of a Signet Classics book. As a sucker for symbolists, I ate this one up with a spoon.
Oddly, the wife bonded with this Degas portrait of a neurasthenic relative.
Such a mystery!
Megan was mad for these flesh tones.
I don't remember any displays of enthusiasm from Simon- he must hate art.
There were two exhibits of photography, a goddamn vast Weston retrospective and selected shots by Luc Delahaye that were amazing. The life sized print of Taliban Soldier was especially striking, but all of them were exceptional.
I made it through about 1/4 of the Weston exhibit before Museum Fatigue set in and I needed to sit down & space out for a while. I love his work and there were many (many, many) spectacular photos, but the sheer volume of them was blinding.
What's that Stalin quote?
One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic?
Well, one masterpiece is a masterpiece, a room full of masterpieces is a headache.
My favorite picture in the Weston exhibition wasn't by Weston.
They had a small room for the work of some friends and contemporaries and I was floored by a Minor White print (frustratingly, not the one featured on this page).
I'm coming around to the museumgoing philosophy of deciding what you want to see ahead of time and ignoring the rest, or just giving it a quick once over. Even a small exhibit flirts with sensory overload- a big retrospective like this one is guaranteed to knock over any but least sensitive viewer.
Up next: the show.
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